( it was one of trump's main promises and unlike other politicians he actually does what he said during the election , they are going to be building a wall )

Trump: Wall Construction to Begin ‘In Months'

While acknowledging the payment will be ‘complicated,’ the president has not backed off his insistence that Mexico will fund the massive project.

By Gabrielle Levy | Political Reporter Jan. 25, 2017, at 1:26 p.m.

President Donald Trump speaks at a meeting with auto industry leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on January 24, 2017 in Washington, DC.
President Donald Trump said in an interview airing Wednesday night that his construction on a wall between the U.S. and Mexico will begin "in months." (Shawn

Thew-Pool/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump said construction on a wall between the U.S. and Mexico would begin "in months" and that, while American taxpayers would front the cost, Mexico would eventually pay back the cost "100 percent."

"Ultimately, it will come out of what's happening with Mexico ... and we will be in a form reimbursed by Mexico, which I've always said," Trump told ABC News' David Muir in an interview airing in full Wednesday night.

Building the wall was one of Trump's earliest campaign pledges, and he has continued to promise its construction would be funded by Mexico despite that country's leadership denying willingness to cough up the cost. Estimates put the price tag of the wall's construction as high as $20 billion.

In the ABC interview, Trump acknowledged that payment for the wall might be "complicated."

"All it is, is we'll be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we make from Mexico," he said. "I'm just telling you there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form. What I'm doing is good for the United States. It's also going to be good for Mexico. We want to have a very stable, very solid Mexico."

Trump said preparing to begin building the wall would start right away.

"As soon as we can, as soon as we can physically do it," he said, of when construction would begin. "I would say in months, yeah. I would say in months – certainly planning is starting immediately."

President Trump signed executive orders Wednesday authorizing the construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall and targeting sanctuary cities, following through on campaign promises that energized his base – and outraged his critics – during the 2016 campaign.

The orders cover a range of immigration enforcement measures. The marquee item is a directive to pursue a southern border wall.

While it’s not yet clear exactly how such a wall might be funded or how much it would cost, the Trump reiterated his vow that Mexico “absolutely” will pay for the project eventually, something the Mexican government has denied.

“Ultimately it will come out of what’s happening with Mexico,” Trump told ABC News, adding construction could begin in a matter of months.

Mexico’s contribution aside, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said existing Homeland Security funding could be used for now to get started, and congressional appropriations eventually would be needed.

TALL TASK: PATCHY BORDER BARRIER SHOWS CHALLENGE AHEAD FOR TRUMP

The same executive order also included provisions to provide DHS with more resources to combat illegal immigration, end what the Trump team calls “catch-and-release” policies, and prioritize the deportation of illegal immigrants who violate other laws.

Another order is aimed at helping federal immigration agents crack down on illegal immigration, by restoring the so-called Secure Communities program, directing the State Department to use its leverage to ensure illegal immigrant criminals are taken back by their country of origin – and moving to strip federal grant money to sanctuary states and cities that “harbor” illegal immigrants.

The latter move is sure to trigger a backlash from the hundreds of jurisdictions that have such policies in place.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump moved aggressively to tighten the nation’s immigration controls Wednesday, signing executive actions to jumpstart construction of his promised U.S.-Mexico border wall and cut federal grants for immigrant-protecting “sanctuary cities.” As early as Thursday, he is expected to pause the flow of all refugees to the U.S. and indefinitely bar those fleeing war-torn Syria.

“Beginning today the United States of America gets back control of its borders,” Trump declared during a visit to the Department of Homeland Security. “We are going to save lives on both sides of the border.”

The actions, less than a week into Trump’s presidency, fulfilled pledges that animated his candidacy and represented a dramatic redirection of U.S. immigration policy. They were cheered by Republicans allies in Congress, condemned by immigration advocates and triggered immediate new tension with the Mexican government.

“I regret and reject the decision of the U.S. to build the wall,” Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Wednesday in a nationally televised address.

Trump is expected to wield his executive power again later this week with the directive to dam the refugee flow into the U.S. for at least four months, in addition to the open-ended pause on Syrian arrivals.

The president’s upcoming order is also expected to suspend issuing visas for people from several predominantly Muslim countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — for at least 30 days, according to a draft executive order obtained by The Associated Press.

Trump is unveiling his immigration plans at a time when detentions at the nation’s southern border are down significantly from levels seen in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The arrest tally last year was the fifth-lowest since 1972. Deportations of people living in the U.S. illegally also increased under President Barack Obama, though Republicans criticized him for setting prosecution guidelines that spared some groups from the threat of deportation, including those brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

As a candidate, Trump tapped into the immigration concerns of some Americans who worry both about a loss of economic opportunities and the threat of criminals and terrorists entering the country. His call for a border wall was among his most popular proposals with supporters, who often broke out in chants of “build that wall” during rallies.

Immigration advocates and others assailed the new president’s actions. Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said the president’s desire to construct a border wall was “driven by racial and ethnic bias that disgraces America’s proud tradition of protecting vulnerable migrants.”

How Trump plans to pay for the wall project is murky. While he has repeatedly promised that Mexico will foot the bill, U.S. taxpayers are expected to cover the initial costs and the new administration has said nothing about how it might compel Mexico to reimburse the money.

In an interview with ABC News earlier Wednesday, Trump said, “There will be a payment; it will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form.”

Pena Nieto said Wednesday, “I have said time and again, Mexico will not pay for any wall.” He has been expected to meet with Trump at the White House next week, although a senior official said Trump’s announcement had led him to reconsider the visit.

Congressional aides say there is about $100 million of unspent appropriations in the Department of Homeland Security account for border security, fencing and infrastructure. That would allow planning efforts to get started, but far more money would have to be appropriated for construction to begin.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, in an interview Wednesday on MSNBC, said Congress will work with Trump on the upfront financing for the wall. Asked about estimates that the project could cost $8 billion to $14 billion, Ryan said, “That’s about right.”

Trump has insisted many times the border structure will be a wall. The order he signed referred to “a contiguous, physical wall or other similarly secure, contiguous and impassable physical barrier.”

To build the wall, the president is relying on a 2006 law that authorized several hundred miles of fencing along the 2,000-mile frontier. That bill led to the construction of about 700 miles of various kinds of fencing designed to block both vehicles and pedestrians.

The president’s orders also call for hiring 5,000 additional border patrol agents and 10,000 more immigration officers, though the increases are subject to the approval of congressional funding. He also moved to end what Republicans have labeled a catch-and-release system at the border. Currently, some immigrants caught crossing the border illegally are released and given notices to report back to immigration officials at a later date.

Trump’s crackdown on sanctuary cities — locales that don’t co-operate with immigration authorities — could cost individual jurisdictions millions of dollars. But the administration may face legal challenges, given that some federal courts have found that cities or counties cannot hold immigrants beyond their jail terms or deny them bond based only a request from immigration authorities.

Some of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas — including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — are considered sanctuary cities.

The president also moved to restart the “Secure Communities” program, which was launched under President George W. Bush and initially touted as a way for immigration authorities to quickly and easily identify people in the country illegally who had been arrested by local authorities.

The program helped the Obama administration deport a record high of more than 409,000 immigrants in 2012. But Obama eventually abandoned the program after immigration advocates and civil libertarians decried it as too often targeting immigrants charged with low-level crimes, including traffic violations.

Among those in the audience for Trump’s remarks at DHS were the families of people killed by people in the U.S. illegally. After reading the names of those killed, Trump said, “Your children will not have lost their lives for no reason.”

Trump’s actions on halting all refugees could be announced sometime this week. Administration officials and others briefed on the plans cautioned that some details of the measures could still be changed, but indicated that Trump planned to follow through on his campaign promises to limit access to the U.S. for people coming from countries with terrorism ties.

A sovereign nation has the right to secure its borders.
For border states who have an economy that may rely on an influx of cheap labour who are wrapping that dirty reality in the nice warm glow of "We don't want to break-up families" the time is clearly coming to have a more serious discussion about the issue.

A high minimum wage only combats poverty when you do not have State and Local government who seemingly turns a blind eye to employers who do not respect labour laws in respect to their employees wages and rights by hiring folks who cannot legally work in that State.

While I can empathize with someone who has been in the US for decades illegally who has a life in the US, I can also understand the flip side of this being viewed as rewarding someone for successfully breaking the law when millions of others have gone through proper channels to secure citizenship.

At a minimum its at least forcing all levels of government to address this issue which has largely been left unchecked for far too long.

WASHINGTON — Determined to wall off America’s border with Mexico, President Donald Trump triggered a diplomatic clash and a fresh fight over trade Thursday as the White House proposed a 20 per cent tax on imports from the key U.S. ally and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto abruptly scrapped next week’s trip to Washington.

The swift fallout signalled a remarkable souring of relations between Washington and one of its most important international partners just days into the new administration. The U.S. and Mexico conduct some $1.6 billion a day in cross-border trade, and co-operate on everything from migration to anti-drug enforcement to major environmental issues.

At the heart of the dispute is Trump’s insistence that Mexico will pay for construction of the massive wall he has promised along the southern U.S. border. Trump on Wednesday formally ordered construction of the wall.

The plan was a centerpiece of Trump’s election campaign, though he never specified how Mexico would fund the project or how he would compel payments if Pena Nieto’s government refused.

The two leaders had been scheduled to discuss the matter at the White House next week. But Pena Nieto took to Twitter Thursday to say he had informed the White House he would not be coming.

In a speech in Philadelphia later Thursday, Trump cast the cancellation as a mutual decision. He said that “unless Mexico is going to treat the United States fairly, with respect, such a meeting would be fruitless, and I want to go a different route. We have no choice.”

On the flight back to Washington, Trump’s spokesman told reporters the president was considering the 20 per cent import tax to foot the bill, the most specific proposal Trump has ever floated for how to cover a project estimated to cost between $12 billion and $15 billion.

“By doing that, we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall just through that mechanism alone,” Spicer said. “This is something that we’ve been in close contact with both houses in moving forward and creating a plan.”

Spicer said Trump was looking at taxing imports on all countries the U.S. has trade deficits with, but he added, “Right now we are focused on Mexico.”

But the announcement sparked immediate confusion across Washington, and the White House tried to backtrack. During a hastily arranged briefing in the West Wing, chief of staff Reince Priebus said a 20 per cent import tax was one idea in “a buffet of options” to pay for the border wall.

A 20 per cent tariff would represent a huge tax increase on imports to the U.S., raising the likelihood of costs being passed on to consumers. Half of all non-agricultural goods enter the U.S. duty free, according to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The other half face import tariffs averaging 2 per cent.

Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Videgaray said Thursday, “A tax on Mexican imports to the United States is not a way to make Mexico pay for the wall, but a way to make the North American consumer pay for it through more expensive avocados, washing machines, televisions.”

Mexico is one of America’s biggest trade partners, and the U.S. is the No. 1 buyer from that country, accounting for about 80 per cent of Mexican exports. A complete rupture in ties could be damaging to the U.S. economy and disastrous for Mexico’s. And major harm to Mexico’s economy would surely spur more people to risk deportation, jail or even death to somehow cross the border to the U.S. — undercutting Trump’s major goal of stopping illegal immigration.

House GOP lawmakers and aides interpreted Spicer’s comments on a 20 per cent border tax as an endorsement of a key plank of their own tax plan, which Speaker Paul Ryan has been working to sell to the president. The House GOP “border adjustability” approach would tax imports and exempt exports as a way of trying to help U.S. exporters and raise revenue.

Earlier this month, Trump called that concept confusing. And during the White House’s clean-up efforts Thursday, Spicer wouldn’t say whether Trump agreed with the border adjustment tax being considered by the House GOP.

The new president has previously raised the prospect of slapping tariffs on imports, but had not suggested it as a way to pay for the border wall.

There’s also disagreement within his new administration over the effectiveness of tariffs in general. Wilbur Ross, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, dismissed tariffs for trade negotiations during his confirmation hearing, saying the 1930 Tariff Act “didn’t work very well then and it very likely wouldn’t work now.”

Pena Nieto has faced intense pressure at home over his response to Trump’s aggressive stance toward his country. Until this week, Mexico had tried its traditional approach of quiet, cautious diplomacy combined with back-room discussions, sending Cabinet officials for talks with the Trump administration.

But that changed when Trump decided to announce his border wall on Wednesday — the same day that two senior Mexican Cabinet ministers arrived in Washington for preliminary talks ahead of what was to be a presidential tete-a-tete. Many Mexicans were affronted by the timing, and Pena Nieto faced a firestorm of criticism at home.

The diplomatic row recalls the rocky days of U.S.-Mexico relations in the 1980s, prior to the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact that Trump has vigorously criticized.

“There is a change in the understanding that had been in operation over the last 22 years, when Mexico was considered a strategic ally,” said Isidro Morales, a political scientist at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education. “Trump has unilaterally broken with this way of doing things

MCALLEN, Texas – EXCLUSIVE: In his first television interview as Homeland Security secretary, retired four-star Marine Gen. John F. Kelly told Fox News he wants the U.S.-Mexico border wall finished in two years – setting an ambitious schedule for the project ordered last week by President Trump.

"The wall will be built where it's needed first, and then it will be filled in. That's the way I look at it," Kelly said. "I really hope to have it done within the next two years."

Fox News traveled with Kelly in McAllen, Texas, on Wednesday where he saw first-hand the challenges for Border Patrol agents. The Rio Grande Valley, known as the "RGV sector," is among the busiest. On any given day, Border Patrol agents pick up at least 600 people who have crossed the Mexican border, entering the U.S. illegally.

Those personnel, he explained, are all part of the broader plan for securing the border.

"Any discussion about the protection of our southwest border involves discussion of physical barriers but also of technological sensors, things like that,” he said. “But it's a layered approach, and it’s got to be backed up by great men and women who are going to make sure that the wall is intact."

But first, the department faces the tough task of funding – and then building – what would be the largest-ever construction project undertaken by the president who made his name in real estate.

Kelly, who was tasked by the president’s executive order with overseeing the planning and construction of the wall, echoed Trump in saying they already “have the authority” under existing law.

“We're looking at the money aspect,” he acknowledged. But he said the White House is working with Congress on the timetable.

“I think the funding will come relatively quickly and like I said, we will build it where it's needed first as identified by the men and women who work the border," Kelly emphasized.

Kelly said it will be only a matter of months before construction begins.

Kelly also said he supported a "surge" of resources to the border so that processing those who cross illegally can happen in a matter of weeks, not "600 plus days."

"If we could surge the court proceedings -- immigration court proceedings on the border -- and within the law, do it very rapidly ... I think that alone would act as a huge deterrent for people who are considering making the trip up," he said.

As for hostility to the wall from Mexico, Kelly said the safety of Americans comes first, though he wants to build a partnership on shared border issues. "I'd really like to establish a relationship on this, on the other side. It would be a mutually beneficial relationship."

Kelly also defended his agents in the wake of last week’s controversial executive order suspending the refugee program and restricting travel from seven mostly Muslim countries. As his agency came under fire over the weekend, he said the department worked to verify reports of mistreatment, and could not. Kelly suggested critics had blown the issue out of proportion.

"Mr. Trump is not loved by everyone in America, and I think this very rapid succession of decisions, I don't think the American public is really all that used to people making decisions,” he said. “I really don't think they're used to people that say things on the campaign trail actually turning them into action."

Asked if the pace had come as a "shock" to the public, Kelly said: "Yes, I think so. But I will tell you the men and women of Homeland Security did a great job out on the front lines, in this case mostly at the airports. People were treated with dignity and respect."

Kelly knocked down media reports that he first learned of the executive order by watching television, the day it was signed, a story first reported by the New York Times: "As soon as I was confirmed which was on Friday a couple of weeks ago, inauguration day, I knew that they were being developed.”

Asked if he was "blindsided by the order," Kelly said, "Not at all. I saw the initial couple of cuts on them probably on Tuesday maybe Thursday, knew it was coming soon and then it came. "

After more than 45 years of service, Kelly retired last year, and did not plan a return to Washington or full-time employment. He said it all changed with a cold call from the transition team when he and his wife Karen were relaxing.

Kelly was initially skeptical about the caller, who is now White House chief of staff.

"We were sitting on the couch when I got the original call on a Saturday afternoon and Reince Priebus called me,” he said. “I don't know him. Once he convinced me it was really Reince Priebus, he said, ‘Would you come up and talk to Mr. Trump, he'd like to talk to you about a position in the administration.’ And I said, ‘I can do that, I'll be up tomorrow.’”

He told his wife he thought the Trump administration was about to offer him a job.

“She said, ‘take it, your whole life, our whole life, the Kelly family is a life of service.’"

El Paso residents highlight the positives of living with a border wall

By Ray Bogan
·Published February 02, 2017

EL PASO, Texas – As the new government puts together a plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, in El Paso, Texas, the idea of a border wall is nothing new.

The border town siting directly across from Juarez has had
fencing for over 25 years. It has been significantly enhanced over the years, especially between 2007 and 2009, when large steel fencing was installed between the two cities.

DHS SECRETARY: BORDER WALL SHOULD BE FINISHED IN TWO YEARS

Former Congressman Silvestre Reyes, who is also the former chief of El Paso Sector Border Patrol, believes the fence plays a big role to improve safety for both residents and law enforcement.

“From an officer safety standpoint and a managing the border standpoint, it’s very effective,” said Reyes.

While Reyes was chief of the El Paso Sector, he enacted the Operation Hold the Line, where all available border patrol agents worked a 20-mile section in El Paso to prevent people from running across the border.

He told Fox News that thanks to the operation illegal crossings in El Paso dropped from 10,000 a day to 500.

HOW FEASIBLE IS TRUMP'S PROPOSED WALL?

Local business owner Dorine Brown was seriously considering moving her store away from the border area until a fence was built directly behind it in 2005. She recalls how undocumented immigrants would run inside her shop to hide from border patrol and entire families would break in and sleep in her warehouse overnight.

“We haven’t had a single person cross [since then]. Not one,” said Brown.

Allyn Echaniz, who also owns a business right on the border, said the fencing is “the best thing ever.” She understands that some people are against the wall, but she says she can attest to the security gains it brought to the town.

She said one night the alarms went off in her business because someone was trying to carve a hole into the back of her building. She also said over the year she has watched many people run across the Rio Grande and through her property, or on the highway in front of her business. She said it’s a lot safer now.

“I guess it’s not a friendly looking thing, but if you stop and think about it, don’t we all have a front door and a back door to our
homes?” said Echaniz.

In some areas, there’s more than just a fence. For instance,
8 miles around the Ysleta Port of Entry in east El Paso, there’s an additional steel barrier about 15 feet high, a canal with swift water flowing directly on the other side, and another barbed wire fence along the canal. Even with all that security, border agents still patrol the area day and night.

Former Border Patrol Agent Martin Wilson who began his career in 1985, when just about the only thing stopping illegal immigration was the Rio Grande River and his fellow agents, agrees that the fencing is helpful. He remembers being part of Operation Hold the Line and how effective it was for the safety of the city.

“It is a big deterrent, it is effective in that sense,” he said. “It gives us that deterrence and gives us time, and with the proper resources then we can be more effective.”

A sovereign nation has the right to secure its borders.
For border states who have an economy that may rely on an influx of cheap labour who are wrapping that dirty reality in the nice warm glow of "We don't want to break-up families" the time is clearly coming to have a more serious discussion about the issue.

A high minimum wage only combats poverty when you do not have State and Local government who seemingly turns a blind eye to employers who do not respect labour laws in respect to their employees wages and rights by hiring folks who cannot legally work in that State.

While I can empathize with someone who has been in the US for decades illegally who has a life in the US, I can also understand the flip side of this being viewed as rewarding someone for successfully breaking the law when millions of others have gone through proper channels to secure citizenship.

At a minimum its at least forcing all levels of government to address this issue which has largely been left unchecked for far too long.

Just to add to that -- if there are open borders, nothing works. What are your civil rights worth, for example, in a world of open borders? What happens to tax revenues? Citizenship loses its value in very material ways.

The state is a necessary evil, and for a state to work, it has to have a jurisdiction, where it prevails. Otherwise, people can escape their obligations too easily, and can pick up on the benefts just as easily.

A sovereign nation has the right to secure its borders.
For border states who have an economy that may rely on an influx of cheap labour who are wrapping that dirty reality in the nice warm glow of "We don't want to break-up families" the time is clearly coming to have a more serious discussion about the issue.

A high minimum wage only combats poverty when you do not have State and Local government who seemingly turns a blind eye to employers who do not respect labour laws in respect to their employees wages and rights by hiring folks who cannot legally work in that State.

While I can empathize with someone who has been in the US for decades illegally who has a life in the US, I can also understand the flip side of this being viewed as rewarding someone for successfully breaking the law when millions of others have gone through proper channels to secure citizenship.

At a minimum its at least forcing all levels of government to address this issue which has largely been left unchecked for far too long.

Just to add to that -- if there are open borders, nothing works. What are your civil rights worth, for example, in a world of open borders? What happens to tax revenues? Citizenship loses its value in very material ways.

The state is a necessary evil, and for a state to work, it has to have a jurisdiction, where it prevails. Otherwise, people can escape their obligations too easily, and can pick up on the benefts just as easily.

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